‘Buerk is right about one thing, though, and that is when he says older presenters such as Mary Berry are now unexpectedly “cool” again.’ Photograph: Ken McKay/Rex Features

Michael Buerk's suggestion that female newsreaders and television presenters who "got a job mainly because (they) look nice" should not cry "ageism" and go to tribunals when they no longer do, lays bare the sexist attitude still held by many men in the industry.

Buerk, a former BBC newsreader who presents Radio 4's The Moral Maze, told the Radio Times that it was "fair enough" for TV executives to "cut down" older presenters "much as you would prune the raspberries to make way for new growth". But from my experience in television, when the shears come out it's usually to cut the women down.

I won a landmark age discrimination case against the BBC in 2011 after being dropped from Countryfile when it moved to primetime. During the tribunal a BBC executive was asked why he had chosen a young female presenter for a role on a new daytime TV show, and he said without hesitation: "Because I liked the look of her."

His reply didn't surprise me, or, I suspect, any woman who's ever worked in TV. How a woman looks and whether that appeals to whoever is hiring and firing, can determine the length and success of a career, not her ability to do the job. But what really shocked me was that this executive didn't appear to think there was anything wrong, even during an employment tribunal, with readily admitting that liking a woman's appearance was his top criterion for handing out employment contracts. There wasn't even an attempt at political correctness.

Buerk pointed out in the Radio Times article that during his career he too had found himself "washed up" in an industry "suddenly about yoof". But the truth is men in TV rarely find themselves out of a job just because they've grown older. Figures gathered by Labour's Commission on Older Women show 30% of on-screen presenters are over the age of 50 and 82% of them are men. The rules that apply to women in TV don't apply to men. Men can age, women can't. Women have to be attractive, men don't.

I went to the law because executives were refusing to consider older women for roles in TV, and this has an impact on wider society. Television has enormous power to shape opinion and form prejudice. If we don't see older people on screen it's as if they don't exist, as if they have no value. As far as I know, I'm the only woman ever to have challenged BBC ageism at an employment tribunal.

Buerk is right about one thing, though, and that is when he says older presenters are now unexpectedly "cool" again, citing Mary Berry and Angela Rippon as evidence. The showbusiness agent Sue Ayton was recently quoted as saying that the situation for older faces had changed: "A couple of years ago, if you went in with an idea with older presenters aimed at older people they would laugh like hyenas and show you the door."

When I won my case, the former BBC director general Mark Thompson said it was a "turning point" for older women in television. And sure enough, it seems that TV executives are finally waking up to the fact that audiences don't reach for the remote as soon as they see an older face. Their perception that only the young and attractive will boost ratings is outdated.

I don't believe we would be at this turning point if women hadn't fought for it. Long before I brought my case, Joan Bakewell, Esther Rantzen, Selina Scott and Mariella Frostrup were challenging sexism and ageism. Now that we are seeing older faces as acceptable TV viewing, I'm sure it will also benefit the careers of people like Buerk – not that I think he will ever accept that his career had a helping hand from the very women he so readily dismisses.